The present invention relates to the rolling of rod or wire stock, and particularly to a roller guide for guiding the rod or wire stock between a pair of rolls which shape the stock. More particularly, the present invention is particularly directed to the fine adjustment of the roller guide.
In known rolling mills it has been customary that the final fine adjustment of the guide rollers has been a rigid adjustment so as to lock the guide rollers in their final position. With such form of rigid final adjustment, if the orientation of the rolling stock which enters the roller guide should be temporarily bent to one side or another, only one of the rollers will be principally loaded by the stock until the bent portion clears the roller guide. While it has been customary to load the rollers individually by spring mountings, it still remains that if only one roller in the pair of rollers is loaded, the other roller will not participate in the springing action and will therefore not be effective to guide the stock. Consequently, during these periods, a roller guide with one one roller loaded will not hold the stock as designed by the original final adjusted position of the roller guide.
In addition, in known roller guides having a substantially rigid final adjustment the type of loading caused by irregularly shaped stock has been found to introduce certain additional problems into the system. For example, with rigid final adjustment of the guide rollers there is potential for backlash within the system and of freezing up of the slide and screw adjustment means because of corrosion.